Of the Rest of Your Life
by Julia456
Summary: Prequel to 'Strays'. Today, as they say, is the first day of the rest of your life...
1. Downhill

Note: This is a prequel to my _Batman Begins/Dark Knight_ fic "Strays". It'll make sense, I guess, even if you haven't read that.

But!

It gives maaaaaajor spoilers for "Strays" and really, I'd recommend you read this _after_, not _before_.

Just a friendly suggestion. :)

* * *

_"Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father_  
_are to be laid upon the children;_  
_therefore, I promise you, I fear you."_

_- The Merchant of Venice, Act III Scene V_

* * *

Richard White was having one of those days where nothing went right.

Clearing out his office at the _Daily Planet_ had been bad enough, but then the goodbye party – where he'd had to listen to everyone mouthing "good luck in New York" and "won't be the same" when he knew they were just there to gossip and stare… Jesus. It was worse than the war zone the bullpen had turned into lately: Lois' friends versus his. She had more, of course, including his uncle Perry. How was _that _for family loyalty?

Richard had never been so happy to leave a place in his life.

But then he'd discovered a flat tire in the parking garage, and had gotten grease all over his clothes while fixing it. Which wouldn't have been a problem in itself except that Lois called mid-tire change.

"I need you to pick up Jason early," she'd said.

"Why? Got a hot date?" he'd asked, hating the sarcasm, hating the bitterness, and yet powerless to stop himself from baiting her.

It wasn't a divorce – you had to be married in order to get one of those, not just engaged for five minutes short of forever – but damn if it didn't feel like one.

"I'm on a story." Flat. Hurt. No elaboration before she'd moved on. "He's at Kevin Johnson's birthday party – I'll give you the address and let them know you're coming. You need to get him by six."

The address she gave him was on the other side of the city; he wouldn't have time to drive home and change into clean clothes first. He hated the thought of turning up on the Johnsons' doorstep sweaty and spattered with car dirt, looking "unfit", looking like the court should grant sole custody to the mother.

But he didn't have much choice. And anyway, extra time with Jason was worth it. A weekend, an overnight here and there, wasn't enough. He missed his son.

It was a suburban neighborhood, one of the ones that put two thousand square feet of house on a lot the size of a postage stamp. The Johnsons' house looked expensively bland, just like every other house on their block. They had, at least, merry clusters of balloons bobbling along the walk, as well as a small fleet of SUVs and minivans lining the curb on both sides of the street.

He pulled up to the curb six cars down from the door and hiked up the curving sidewalk to the door. The balloons bumped and swayed in the breeze around him. Happy shrieks and little voices were coming from the fenced-in backyard.

Feeling almost like an intruder, he rang the bell and waited. After a few moments a woman came to the door and eyed him with wary welcome. "Yes?"

"Hi," he said, smiling, trying to forget that he had black grease smeared down his left pant leg. "I'm Richard White, I'm here to pick up my son, Jason. His mother called -"

"Oh, _hi_," the woman said. Her smile became more real. "Sure. Lois said you'd be coming. I'll go get Jason – he's out back."

Richard let his smile fade as she closed the door on him. _Don't try to come in_, the unspoken message went. _You're just a glorified shuttle service, not a real parent. You're not really responsible for Jason_.

But he was. He _was_, dammit. Biology was only one part of-

The door opened again and a small person shot out and wrapped themselves around his legs with a joyful cry of, "_Daddy!_"

"Hey, kiddo," he said, grinning easily now. He loved his son – loved him so much that he could ignore that tiny corner of his mind that whispered _He's not really yours_. Loved him so much that the whole day seemed better and brighter just because Jason was there, happy to see him.

He swung Jason up into his arms and gave him a hug and a kiss, then set him back down and ruffled his hair. "Thanks," he told the woman, taking the backpack and overnight bag she handed through the door. "Say thank you," he prompted Jason.

"Thank you," Jason echoed, then immediately turned to more important matters. "Look what I got!"

He held out his bag of party favors for Richard's inspection and approval as they walked back to the car. Behind them, the woman called out, "Goodbye!" and shut the door again.

"Wow," Richard said, looking over the cheap plastic baubles and inedible bubblegum. "I'd say you made out like a bandit."

Jason giggled. "This is my favorite," he announced, pulling out a ring with the Superman 'S' in bright red and yellow. _Of course_. "It was on the cupcake."

"You didn't eat the cupcake, did you?" Richard asked automatically, stopping to unlock the car. He doubted Mrs. Johnson had served gluten-free cupcakes at her darling Kevin's party.

He kept his voice light for Jason's sake, despite the raw spike of bitterness twisting inside him at the thought of Superman. This entire clusterfuck pivoted on Jason, but none of it was the kid's fault.

Jason shook his head and Richard noted, irritated, that Lois had let him go too long without a haircut again. What was with her and the haircuts? Was it honestly that hard to keep their son looking presentable?

"I only ate the icing."

"Close enough," he said, tweaking Jason's nose as he got into the booster seat. Jason made a big fuss out of fastening his own seatbelt these days… but Richard always checked to be sure it was on correctly. "You had fun, right?"

"Yup," Jason said, swinging his feet. "We had a lot of fun. Kevin is really cool. He's got a mega _gigantic_ TV in his bedroom. He showed us."

Richard shut the door and got into the driver's seat, tossing the backpack and little duffel bag onto the passenger side. "What was the best part?"

Jason lit up and started a long, mostly sensical story about Kevin and some game they'd played at the party. Richard listened, amused, while he drove. He adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see Jason a little better.

That was a mistake; it meant that he never saw the black SUV pull away from the Johnsons' curb and follow his car at a careful, professional distance. It wouldn't have mattered if he did, ultimately, but it might have stopped him from thinking that his day had finally improved.


	2. Last Act

It started to rain – fat, heavy drops that reduced visibility to a few feet and made the ugliness of an hour-long commute to Richard's new apartment even more frustrating than usual. He'd looked for a place in the city, but the prices… There had just been no point, since he was moving to New York next week.

He didn't _want_ to move to New York. It certainly wasn't going to do any good for his custody case or for his career, but staying was proving to be an impossible proposition. He felt like he was being pushed out of Metropolis, by Lois and her life, and he resented it. A lot.

The radio station that had been playing music interrupted it for news of a series of terrorist bombings in Romania, and oh, how wonderful, Superman had just arrived on the scene. Richard turned it off.

"When do I go back to Mommy? I forget."

"Two days. Unless I keep you forever." Richard looked over his shoulder at the happy little boy in the backseat and winked, although he wasn't entirely convinced that he was joking.

Jason grinned. "You can't do that, Daddy!"

"Oh yeah? Just watch me, kiddo." Traffic was picking up again as they left the outer fringes of the city, heading into another patch of suburbia. He flicked the wiper blades to a faster setting. "What sounds good for dinner?"

"Pizza!"

Richard made a game-show buzzer noise. "Nice try, but nope."

"I can eat the cheese _and_ the tomato sauce _and_ the pepperoni," Jason said in a pleading whine. "_Mommy_ lets me."

_Mommy lets me_. Three words to win every argument.

There were days when he wished Jason wasn't so smart.

"Well, we'll see," he said, carefully holding his voice neutral.

Up ahead flashing taillights caught his attention. He slowed automatically, trying to see what was going on.

A car was stopped on the shoulder of the road with its emergency flashers on. There was a woman standing next to the vehicle, huddled under an umbrella, looking miserable and anxious. It was a stretch of highway without a lot of businesses – just one big office building, which was plainly closed and empty. Other drivers were whizzing past without pause.

Richard felt a tug of sympathy. He would've liked some help himself, earlier. And he sure knew what it felt like to be abandoned to the wolves by the rest of the world.

"Hold on," he said to Jason, pulling over. "I'm just going to see if this lady needs any help, okay?"

"Okay," Jason said. He had his Superman ring out and was swooping it through the air.

"Don't take off your seatbelt. I'll be right back."

He got out of the car, shutting the door but leaving the engine on for Jason's sake, and was soaked to the skin well before he reached the woman. "Hi," he said, raising his voice over the noise of traffic and weather. "Need some help?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, relieved. "There's something wrong with the engine." She was older than he'd thought, and not a local – she had a precise British accent, although he thought he caught a hint of another underneath that. Something Slavic, maybe.

"Your engine, huh." Richard's expertise with engines ran to small aircraft. Moreover, he didn't really want to play mechanic in the middle of a monsoon, with his kid waiting in the car. The rain wasn't doing anything to rinse off the black grease on his clothes. "Uh… Do you have a cell phone?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't."

"I can call someone for you, if you want."

"No," she said as he reached for the phone in his pocket, and the sudden whipcrack of authority in her voice made him pause. He blinked and she was holding a gun in her free hand, pointed at his chest. "I don't. Keep your hands out, where I can see them. Are you Richard White?"

"Who –"

"No talking," she ordered. The accent was thicker, more clipped; the air of helplessness was gone. "That's your son in the car? Jason White?"

Dread settled in the pit of his stomach, swift and horrible. He glanced at his car and saw a black SUV pull up behind it. "Why do you want Jason?" he demanded.

The woman's mouth twitched in a cruel smile. "Because he's not your son."

Richard felt a raw fury rise up and take over, blotting out reason and good sense. He looked at the smug expression on the woman's face and swung a fist at her jaw.

It connected.

She staggered.

The gun went off, but it missed him.

He turned and ran back towards the car, back towards Jason, heart pounding, getting the driver's door open before the woman was there again, knocking him down somehow, holding the gun on him. Pressed to his head this time. Raindrops spattered and pinged against the barrel.

There were cars driving past. _People _driving past. What was wrong with them, that they didn't _notice_ this?

And where the _hell_ was Superman?

"Daddy?!" Jason cried, scared, pulling against his seatbelt.

Richard wanted to answer him, reassure him, but he couldn't. The words stuck in his throat as lies. Pain was spreading through his back where he'd fallen against the car. The metal O of the gun barrel hurt where it dug into his scalp.

"Don't move," the woman said flatly. She had to raise her voice; the _door ajar_ tone was sounding in a continuous implacable whine. "We are going to take the boy."

"No," Richard spat. Every fiber of his body wanted to come up off the ground and fight, but the gun at his head was holding him in check. _Don't get hurt_, he was thinking, _you have to save Jason, can't save him if you're hurt. Can't protect him if you're dead_. "No, you're not. Don't even _try_ to-"

She was ignoring him. She looked up and nodded at someone he couldn't see. The back door opened and Jason made a frightened noise, then yelped in pain.

"_Jason!_ That's my _son!_" Richard yelled at the woman, not forgetting but no longer caring about the gun. He had to get to Jason - He had to protect Jason, he had to _stop_ them - He surged up, pushing, shouting, "_You can't_ -"

There was a sound like the universe shattering.

And then nothing.


	3. Coda

The woman left two of her people to dispose of the cars and the father's body. She rode in the black SUV with the others and the boy and watched with dispassionate interest as the full effects of the injection made themselves known. The boy slumped over, breath shallow, eyes glazed. No more difficulty from _that_ quarter.

Sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with fluorine, more vulgarly known as kryptonite.

As she had been told, it didn't take very much. The majority of the solution was still in the vial, glowing faintly green in the dim light.

"Faster," she ordered the man driving. Her jaw ached where the father had managed to land a blow, but the pain was tolerable.

That scene had been a mistake - the only one of the day, caused by factors beyond her control. Perhaps it was just as well. Removing the boy from the friend's house could have proven to be much more difficult than staging a traffic stop at the last second.

She was pleased with herself and her people for adapting so efficiently to the changing circumstances. And they'd held to the timetable despite all the obstacles.

They would be gone from Metropolis airspace within thirty minutes, precisely according to the plan. Although she would be overseas, completing a last few arrangements, and not part of the next stage, she knew it would go equally smoothly: She had chosen six men with impeccable credentials to staff the safehouse, and it was the perfect location to hold the boy.

No one, after all, would expect the League of Shadows to seek refuge in Gotham. And what elegant revenge against Bruce Wayne, the so-called "Batman" – hiding _their_ ultimate weapon in _his_ precious city. A gratifying equation all around. Balanced. Conclusive.

She sat back and folded her hands in her lap, smiling to herself.

Talia al Ghul was having one of those days where everything went exactly right.

**--end--**


End file.
